Mares' Tails
by Sadazen
Summary: [My demons can't touch you here, and because of that, just for a few moments, I'm free.] When his nightmares catch up with him, Ran returns to the source of both consolation and guilt, and reflects.


**Disclaimer: **WK and all it's characters, not mine. You think I'd be here otherwise?

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**Mares' Tails  
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The nurses, they've forgotten to turn the lights on again. It's not as if anyone would mind, they say. How inconsiderate. However, I can't help thinking that perhaps, in a sense, they're right. As you are, light and dark are much the same thing. And as for me, well, I can't say I care very much. Hospital lights tend to glare, anyway.

This thought surprises even me. On any other day, I'd be irritated, at the very least, but I'm not. I guess it's just one of those nights. One of those nights when I can fool myself enough into thinking that the darkness of the past and the uncertainty of the future don't matter, and nothing exists other than you and I. The world outside is nothing but a dream within a dream.

Sometimes it gets so that I almost believe it. Almost. Unfortunately, I'm never quite there, though I come pretty close.

And this is just such a night. There's a full moon out, and there are mares' tails in the sky.

You remember the mares' tails, don't you? We'd watch for them nearly every night when we were little, those white wisps of clouds that you said were the tails of the horses that pull Luna's chariot as she makes her nightly journey. And you'd get that light in your eyes when you spoke, as if you truly believed it, or were sharing some precious secret with someone that I couldn't see. That was what made the watching worthwhile.

These are especially beautiful, Aya; I wish you could see them, even if some part of me thinks otherwise. Wherever you are now, no doubt every night is like this. Perhaps you even visit with Luna herself. There might be the occasional nightmare, the brief fall of shade across the beauty of a realm that is yours alone, but the good thing about dreams is that there's always someplace else to go. The smile on your face even now is proof of that.

I envy you. Sleep often eludes me, and when it does come it seems that all I have are nightmares that I can't escape from even when I wake. You know their names. Shame. Grief. Despair. Doubt. They were the things I always wanted to protect you from, even with the knowledge that they cannot touch you here… Even with the knowledge that I'm bringing them to you even now.

A year ago I was convinced that whatever sins I committed were out of love for you, and for the call of duty. A year ago, I spent as many waking moments as I could here, wishing you'd wake up. But I'm no longer the person I was then. I've killed those who I felt deserved death and those who did not. Have I failed you in doing so? You always said no one, no matter what their sin, deserved death, because the dead cannot repent…

That thought seems so outrageous to me now that sometimes I'm tempted to laugh. Other times to cry. Still other times to pinch or slap myself in a vain attempt to wake up.

But I haven't laughed or cried in a long time, I realize, so long that I may even have forgotten how. And something tells me, time and time again, that I am very much awake. This nightmare is real, and my own hands spun it.

And now… are you looking at me in your dreams? Do you mourn the saint of all sinners who was your brother once, the man who took your name and your old life and washed them in blood because he thought it was all _for your sake? _Would you blame me? Forsake me? I don't know. And it's useless to even try to say I don't care. I have nothing else left.

I'm a coward in telling you all this as you lie sleeping and (at least I think so) oblivious. I realize that, but I want your first waking moments, whenever they may be, to be blissful, by whatever means. It would be the greatest shame of all to know that it was I who snuffed out the light in your eyes.

But perhaps, I shouldn't worry. Here is not the place, nor now the time. My demons can't touch you here, and because of that, just for a few moments, I'm free. I have that consolation, at least.

If- when- you wake, my sister, I dream that it will be on a night like this one, with a full moon out, and mares' tails in the sky.

Another thing you always said is that it's good to dream. And dream I do.

**Fin**

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**A/N: **You know the drill. ;) Please leave a review on your way out. Many thanks. 


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